Playing a Partita.

This semester has been truly enriching, particularly in my religious education. I won't deny that I really dislike a lot of religion courses at BYU. If you get the wrong professor, you learn the gospel according to their perspective, and you don't spend a whole lot of time in the scriptures. Due to some grand, blind luck, I have found myself in a brilliant class with a teacher who just wants to help us understand who Jesus is. The Gospels have always been my favorite set of scripture and this course is expanding my perspective and furthering my understanding. Each lecture is actually really exciting (I may or may not be a total nerd) and I walk away with some serious gratitude for the New Testament, for this opportunity we get to look right into who Jesus was and how He lived each principle we are instructed to live.

That's why it makes me so sad that there's this bias against the New Testament and The Old Testament as books of scripture. Elder Holland's grand and powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was deeply moving. But a good friend (along with his insight that never fails to humble me ever so slightly...) and I were discussing the frustratingly prevalent attitude toward the New Testament, that as scripture it is apparently not up to par and standard with The Book of Mormon. Clearly translation issues will breed a little uncertainty. One has been through hundreds, another, one. But the Lord wouldn't endorse The Bible if it were unsuitable for scholarship and study.

But the beauty of The New Testament is in the personal relationship we can develop with Jesus, the individual who lived, walked, ate, slept, taught, and spoke in Israel.

Might I be so bold as to argue that if we really have a desire to know Jesus, and therefore actually get a lot of the doctrine, we must develop a really good relationship with the Gospels (I can hear all of you, "thank you, Captian Obvious")? I'm not proposing that The Book of Mormon isn't wonderful to study, or that living Prophets do not aid us in our journey to be more perfect, more Christlike. Only that our Gospel Doctrine classes could sometimes regard this scripture with a little more credence.

Think of a skill you've developed through the years. I use piano, because it's an easy example. You play through certain masterful composers because of the different technique you'll develop during each practicing period. Chopin, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, etc. Your teacher helps to foster your growth and development, guiding you to more correct finger placement, dynamic interval, and interpretation, all with the hopes that you'll be a better pianist and have the skill that is more sensitive to that particular genre or composer.

But because everything in Jen-land is magical and wonderful (despite what my bloodshot eyes are telling me), you have a lesson with Chopin or with Bach or with Mozart and you play one of their actual pieces for them. You hear them play it with their particular nuance and sensitivity.

It's a bit of a crude metaphor but I hope it illustrates, perhaps only slightly, what I feel is a bit of an obvious and yet often disregarded approach to understanding the Savior.